Friday, April 9, 2010

When I was a childthere was an old woman in our neighborhood whom we calledThe Witch.All day she peered from her second storywindowfrom behind the wrinkled curtainsand sometimes she would open the windowand yell: Get out of my life!She had hair like kelpand a voice like a boulder.

I think of her sometimes nowand wonder if I am becoming her.My shoes turn up like a jester's.Clumps of my hair, as I write this,curl up individually like toes.I am shoveling the children out,scoop after scoop.Only my books anoint me,and a few friends,those who reach into my veins.Maybe I am becoming a hermit,opening the door for onlya few special animals?Maybe my skull is too crowdedand it has no opening through whichto feed it soup?Maybe I have plugged up my socketsto keep the gods in?Maybe, although my heartis a kitten of butter,I am blowing it up like a zeppelin.Yes. It is the witch's life,climbing the primordial climb,a dream within a dream,then sitting hereholding a basket of fire.